Pro-Israel blogger attacks Canada First Nation chief, but Palestinians express solidarity with Idle No More

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Liberal website The Huffington Post last week published an attack on an indigenous rights activist who is on hunger strike in Canada, labeling her “the hungry chief mugging for the cameras on an island in the Ottawa River.”

Writing on the Canadian edition of the site, anti-Palestinian blogger Yoni Goldstein openly attacked Theresa Spence as a “problem” responsible for indigenous people’s woes in Canada and said he had “no sympathy” for her.

Goldstein once wrote an article in right-wing Canadian paper National Post lauding the work of Alan Dershowitz, the notorious anti-Palestinian lawyer and defender of Israeli war crimes, as “valuable and significant.” He’s also written for Israeli newspapers Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post.

In the disgustingly racist blog post on The Huffington Post Canada last year, Goldstein wrote that even should all the problems created by Israeli occupation be removed “the Palestinians [would] still have to deal with [the problem of] their own culture, the very thing Romney was alluding to.”

In another article, he used the racist terminology of the “Palestinian demographic problem [which] poses immediate difficulties” (i.e. the specter of too many Palestinian babies being born on territory controlled by Israel).

Chief Spence and Idle No More

Chief of the Attawapiskat First Nation in northern Ontario, Theresa Spence launched a hunger strike last month in solidarity with Idle No More, an indigenous rights movement that has swept Canada since it was launched by four women in November.

The grassroots movement has been organizing teach-ins, flash mobs, demonstrations and blockades to draw attention to its demands. At the center of these is the call to revoke C-45, a new law activists say is “a legislative attack on First Nation people and the lands and waters across the country.”

Spence is demanding a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and has vowed to continue hunger striking to draw attention to C-45 and other items of legislation that threaten indigenous sovereignty and degrade environmental protection.

Blaming the victim

While expressing a few empty words ostensibly in favor of Idle No More, Goldstein lays blame on Spence and other First Nations Chiefs, rather than the Canadian federal government: “She and other native leaders are the biggest reason why native reserves are mostly hellholes, filled with poverty, addiction, lack of education and general misery.”

This hostile attitude puts him at odds with the Idle No More movement. While a statement on its web site calls for caution on the Canadian media’s focus on Spence, and that the leader of the movement is “the grassroots people,” it also emphasizes that activists are “very grateful for Theresa Spence’s honorable and courageous support.” Many demonstrators have have adopted Spence’s demand for a meeting with Harper as one of their own.

One of the movement’s founders warned on Tuesday that mainstream media outlets were trying to create divisions within the movement and expressed support for Spence: “We don’t have a separation between the grassroots and chiefs… I’d like to shift the conversation back to our federal government,” Sheelah McLean told a local Saskatchewan newspaper.

Goldstein’s attempt to sow divisions within the movement would seem to fall within this category.

As Palestinians, who struggle against settler colonialism, occupation and apartheid in our homeland and for the right of Palestinian refugees – the majority of our people – to return to our homeland, we stand in solidarity with the Idle No More movement of Indigenous peoples and its call for justice, dignity, decolonization and protection of the land, waters and resources.

We recognize the deep connections and similarities between the experiences of our peoples – settler colonialism, destruction and exploitation of our land and resources, denial of our identity and rights, genocide and attempted genocide

It continues:

The Canadian government, reflecting its own settler colonial nature, was one of the earliest and strongest supporters of the establishment of Israel as a settler colony on Palestinian land and has since that time been a steadfast backer of Israeli wars, occupation, colonization, and oppression against our people.

The Canadian establishment’s pro-Zionist stance only seem to have increased in recent years, especially under the Conservative Harper government.

That colonial entities should express mutual support for each other will come as no surprise to indigenous peoples.

hey folks, DO NOT FALL PREY to the old "that Blogger represents people in his community" such as the Israeli blogger's **mean spirited** attitudes toward you, toward IdleNoMore : I am a Jew, who has been an ACTIVIST for over a DECADE. I stand WITH Native Indians &
**ALL PEACE & JUSTICE WORKERS on EARTH.**
No blogger tells ME what my Jewish-spirituality is, or what my political beliefs are.
The *real* question is:
will we allow him to have some kind of "fake power"
to represent everyone-- just because he says "his" Israeli point-of-view is some
kind of all knowing/all important opinion? All because he's there in Israel?--WELL my Grandfather was fighting the NAZIs LOOOOONG befor that guy was blogging--and--my other Grandfather was in Tel Aviv, Isreal, LONG BEFORE that Israeli blogger was blogging..
Any blogger's mean-spirited-opinions are NOT mine, not the opinions
of "All Jews or Israeli's"-- he's just another guy who says his stuff on some blog
or web talk.
STAY STRONG for YOUR struggle & for JUSTICE & Peace for ALL in this World..
If we MAKE our politicians FOLLOW the People--as intended, then JUSTICE is what America & Israel & Canada will-stand-for.
The haters & the "people-who-put-down-others" stand for nothing but *their-own* opinions,, NEVER forget this.
Stand for what is POSITIVE & Just & FAIR...
Don't waste ur time when some blogger "acts as if" he stands for THIS or THAT or ANY country, people, or community-- just because he's "from there."
The haters & mean-spirited people are oh-so-SLY about how to
use media, YET, the well informed, good hearted, Human Rights & Justice workers MUST stand for progress to heal this WORLD :: Speak Truth to Power,
peace0ut, Rob M.

Our group (Voices of Palestine) does a Saturday vigil and it coincided with the Idle No More demo inside the Westlake Mall. It was really powerful to join in solidarity. We had a big "Palestine: It's About the Land" banner and other signs relating to the common struggle of Palestine and Idle No More.